Numero Doce: The Last Go-Round

[Will Reyer]

Numero Doce, the Last Go-Round : the All-Scrap Special 10/25/25 Will Reyer

When my Pam died in February, 11 days short of 81, I had just about completed a prototype for a 14 fret OM guitar with a wider X brace like my two prior “Norman Blake” long-scale 12 fret builds, #9 and #11.

The incomplete guitar needed the bridge glued on, tuners, a nut and saddle, and the end pin. I left the components with my luthier friend, Kjell, to complete and mail to me, as I moved from Michigan to Texas just after Easter. I'm now in a senior residence place with about 150 apartments and 2 miles from my daughter and her family. Without tools or work space.

I received the completed guitar shipped to me yesterday.

Kjell's fret end finishes make mine look incomplete. He glued on my bridge, made saddle and false nut from my Corian blanks, blending in the intonation on the saddle smoothly instead of filing separate notches like my crude method. Added some open tuners - I thought I left him a couple sets of the C.B. Gitty ones, enclosed, that I used to use, but I like the white pearl buttons.

This prototype used up the last of most stuff I had left. I had yellow poplar boards for neck blocks and some early built necks, light, stiff, inexpensive. Had a board wide enough to make full depth OM sides, which turned out to be the easiest side bending I ever did. Suspect that and birch are what most of the $3 or $4 guitars the old Delta blues guys bought were made from.

Soundboard and back are 6mm Chinese underlayment plywood, the soundboard piece had a grinch across the upper bout that I had to sand down but is still visible if you look close. By all rights anything that thick for a soundboard ought to make horrible noise. Tuned up, right out of the box, it 's as loud as my mahogany soundboard Taylor I've been breaking in for a week yesterday. Does boom less on the low E but o.k. With a thick plywood top it's probably not a useful prototype as to sound, either, since I was out of stuff for conventional soundboards.

I made a wider X brace, to just barely support the higher corners of the bridge wings, like my cedar #9 and #11 builds, a placement I observed on the Martin '29 parlor guitar soundboard Kjell loaned me to take dimensions from a couple years ago. With a good cedar top this design ought to make loud guitars like my #5 or #9.

All interior bracing is from vertical grain #2 common white pine, per a remark in Don Teeter's book. Linings are my usual reverse kerfed basswood, light and stable.

Had yet a 12" piece of 1/4" x 1/2" steel left from neck braces of the 3rd and 4th builds I did. Used that instead of a Stew-Mac dbl action truss rod, so there ain't gonna be a quick adjustment for this one.

The neck I'd started for #6 but somehow managed to ruin twice. First I made it too thin, then I undercut the cheeks of the tenon before I should have. It had my usual homage to Antonio de Torres Jurado, a Spanish V-joint for the headstock.

Was going to throw it away but decided to keep it on the shelf to remind me that guitars have to be built each step in a certain sequence.

I glued on 3 layers of thin wood, mahogany, cherry, and maple, to make the neck thick enough before adding an old osage orange fretboard I'd made years ago, flat, not radiused.
The bridge is osage orange, also, from the same down branch in a fence row 1.4 miles north of my old farm that the owner let me have.

In order to maintain the 14th fret at the body join, I cobbled up a piece of 1/4" plywood like a collar shim to permit me to recut the undercut for the tenon cheeks at the proper angle.

Usually I just add side marker dots to a fretboard, as I had one of the first Formica Martins (made in PA, not Mexico like later) for fifteen years and never realized it didn't have dot markers on the face of the fretboard until I traded it in for a Martin, because I don't look at it while playing, just the edge. This time I had scrap purpleheart, and did dual purpose fret markers visible from both side and face of fretboard.

First coat of finish was a sanding sealer, then routed the binding rabbets. Doing this tore a little of the top and back plywood, so sprayed on some flat black paint on the sides and used same for sunbursts on soundboard and back. Added red oak bindings, not scraped flush, and then wiped on a couple coats of satin urethane.

Yeah, it's rude and it's crude and for two days playing, it doesn't sound bad for a 6mm sound board, but with that same material on the back it's heavier than most.

6 photos: 1,2,3 are where I had it, A/B/C are Kjell's completion. Will hopefully make a sound file to add in a couple weeks when it's played in some.

This isn't how I planned to end my building – I was hoping to be on my farm for another 3 years yet until 85 - but “It is what it is” as my stepbrother used to say. I've enjoyed all the excellent advice from some of the members here (you know who you are) and I'll keep living vicariously by all the excellent stuff you guys post.

[Herman]

Fun to see how you choose your solutions, far from the usual. There are several ways to make a guitar., you showed us.
And nice you had this guitar completed. Carries good memories, I guess.
Thanks for your friendly contributions. Hope to see you around here. Take care.
Herman

[John Parchem]

Great to see the completed guitar. I hope life is going well in Texas. Great to be close to family. I hope you have the opportunity to record some music with the guitar.

[Kevin in California]

Will it's nice that you got help to complete this guitar.
I've always been amazed how you've been quite successful
making guitars from common materials. It helps me realize that all my guitars don't have to be made using "premium" wood and supplies to look good and sound good.

Stay as busy as you can. I know you wish you could still be building! Thanks for sharing with us over the years!
Looking forward to hearing you play this one friend!

[Rick_A]

Man, using local domestic wood is one thing, orange osage from 1.4 miles down the road is hyper-local! Really inspirational post Will. Your OM looks awesome.

[Will Reyer]

Sound Files:

C,B, & Q.mp3

(1.34 MiB) Downloaded 86 times

Jesse James T 324e.mp3

(297.31 KiB) Downloaded 79 times

Jesse James #12.mp3

(298.62 KiB) Downloaded 72 times

The Taylor 324e arrived about a week before Kjell mailed me my completed #12 guitar. I'd never owned a guitar with a mahogany soundboard before, only played one a year or more ago at Sweetwater that sounded wonderful, when I iived an hour north of Ft. Wayne.

Of the guitars I've built, however, I can tell you that cedar and even plywood open up faster than spruce topped guitars. It took a week of playing the new mahogany Taylor before the top end opened up. Cedar soundboard guitars I've built, as well as plywood topped builds, like spruce topped guitars, sound uniformly bad to my ears when strung up, but all the little components in a cedar or plywood guitar have figured out overnight that they're going to have to work together, and amazingly, next day sound lots better. Spruce is slower.

My #12 build out of the box on arrival sounded like the new Taylor did after playing it as hard as I could for a week without making my right thumb incandescent.

My recording equipment currently consists of the iPhone Voice Memos utility, the fidelity of which is not renowned. I'm attaching a little quick picking of the tune Jesse James, on my build and the Taylor both. Also, if it isn't too big a file, my song C, B, & Q on the 12th build.
All in all, not too bad for the All-Scrap Special.

[John Parchem]

The guitar sound great!